Afrasianet-Police give protesters 10 minute warning to leave as over a thousand officers move to dismantle Occupy LA City Hall Camp, after having cleared a similar encampment in Philadelphia early hours on Wednesday.
¬Law enforcers in LA have closed off streets surrounding the encampment as hundreds waited for what they believed was an imminent operation.
Messages on Twitter reveal the wrangle between the two sides. Police tell protesters they are in violation of penal codes. Protesters tell police they are in violation of the Constitution.
Some protesters are believed to have let off fireworks near the camp.
About half of some 500 tents remained in Los Angles below Monday morning eviction deadline for the weeks-old encampment – one of the largest still remaining in the country. ¬The action in Los Angeles came after police in Philadelphia began pulling down tents after three warnings to leave. The eviction came more than two days after Philadelphia's deadline for protesters to remove all structures and belongings from Dilworth Plaza.
According to Associated Press, Police Commissioner in Philadelphia Charles Ramsey said breaking up the camp in the early-morning hours helped minimize any disruption to businesses and traffic. No arrests were made, he said.
Occupy protesters started marching through the streets of Philadelphia, but were later stopped by police.
Most protesters participated in the march, but a few watched police take down the tents and chanted, "We are the 99 per cent."
"This is a symbolic action, but in another sense this has been our home for almost two months and no one wants to see their home taken away from them," Associated Press quotes 22-year-old protester in Los angeles Bri Barton as saying.
"This is a monumental night for Los Angeles. We're going to do what we can to protect the camp," said Gia Trimble, member of the Occupy LA media team, as cited by AP.
She said she thought a lot of people would stay and risk arrest, adding, "We're really committed to this."
The movement against economic disparity and perceived corporate greed began with Occupy Wall Street in Manhattan two months ago, and police have removed Occupy demonstrators in other cities. Some of those instances involved the use of pepper spray and tear gas by authorities.

Afrasianet-Division among UN Security Council members on the situation in Syria grows deeper. While Moscow insists on a compromise to end the crisis without any ultimatums, the US and Germany reiterate their calls for the body to act on Damascus.
¬The Russian Foreign Ministry urged on Tuesday to stop using language of ultimatums in dealing with Syria, adding the disorders within the country are instigated mostly by an armed opposition rather than the country’s officials.
“Now it is necessary to stop acting through ultimatums and try to redirect the situation into a political course,” Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a news conference on Tuesday.
“The armed people are treating the peaceful population very cruelly, and it concerns not only the security officials, but more so those armed groups, who instigate the disorders,” continued Lavrov, saying that such cruelties should be stopped. “But this concerns not only the actions of the authorities, but, in the larger decree, of those armed groups, who have been working in Syria and who are in close contact with a number of Western and Arab countries,” he concluded.
He also said that Moscow opposes an arms embargo on Syria, referring to the Libyan scenario and " based on the experience it gained in Libya".
Lavrov’s speech comes after US and Germany have renewed their calls for the UN Security Council to take action in response to alleged atrocities committed by Syrian regime forces against demonstrators.
The US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said “we think it is time to revisit the question," as cited by Associated Press. While the Germany's ambassador Peter Wittig called for the council to “take up that decision and endorse and reinforce it”.
The comments follow the UN report condemning "crimes against humanity" by Syrian security forces, which was announced on Monday.
It insists Syrian security forces, along with militias, were given "shoot-to-kill" orders to crush demonstrations. More than 3,500 people have been killed during the eight-month uprising.
But Russia’s Foreign Minister insists the document does not reflect the official point of view of the UN as an organization, but rather reflects only opinion of the representatives of its Secretariat.
“The official UN position is announced only by its chief bodies. It is the UN Security Council first of all and the General Assembly, but neither of them has made any reports,” he said.
Russia has repeatedly pledged to prevent a Libya-style scenario unfolding in Syria and backed up its promise by vetoing together with China the UN resolution on Syria on October 5.
Meanwhile, pressure on Syrian government grows further as Turkish Foreign Minister said on Tuesday that the regime that tortures its own people has no chance of survival.
Recently, the Arab League approved sweeping sanctions targeting Syria for its crackdown on protesters

The Khartoum government has blocked South Sudanese oil exports due to a dispute over transit fees, Oil Minister Ali Ahmed Osman said on Monday.

"Sudan stopped South Sudan's exports of oil on November 17," in the second such incident since August, a month after the south declared its independence, the minister told reporters.

"After the independence of South Sudan, we allowed them to export oil and we asked them to pay the fees of the port and some other fees, which they agreed to," he said.

"Up to the end of October, the total amount of fees owed is $727 million and they haven't paid anything. For this reason, we decided to stop South Sudan from exporting oil," said Osman.

-Agencies-
 

Syrian security forces committed crimes against humanity, including the killing and torture of children, after orders from the top of Bashar al-Assad's regime, UN-appointed investigators said on Monday.

Evidence gathered by the Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria found state officials guilty of murders, rape and torture, in their brutal crackdown on protesters since March.

The panel interviewed 223 victims and witnesses, among them defectors from President Assad's security forces who told of shoot to kill orders to crush demonstrators and cases of children being tortured to death.

"The commission believes that orders to shoot and otherwise mistreat civilians originated from policies and directives issued at the highest levels of the armed forces and the government," the panel said in its report.

Chairman Paulo Pinheiro told a press conference in Geneva: "Members of the Syrian army and security forces have committed crimes against humanity in their repression of a largely civilian population in the context of a peaceful protest movement.

"These crimes include murder, torture, rape and imprisonment.

"The commission has also concluded that the widespread and systematic violations of human rights in Syria could not have happened without the consent of the highest-ranking state officials."

Defectors from military and security forces told the commission that they received orders to shoot at unarmed protesters without warning.

They had conducted joint operations with loyalist militias with "shoot to kill" orders, notably in Latakia in early April and in a suburb of the same port city in August.

"The protesters called for freedom. They carried olive branches and marched with their children," a witness was quoted as saying.

"We were ordered to either disperse the crowd or eliminate everybody, including children. We opened fire."

The panel heard of sniper attacks on people leading marches and on those trying to rescue the wounded.

Torture and killings reportedly took place in the Homs Military Hospital by security forces dressed as doctors and abuse of detainees was described as "rampant" at the detention facilities of the Air Force Intelligence Branch at Mazzeh airport near Damascus.

The report highlighted the case of 14-year-old detainee Thamir Al Sharee from the town of Sayda whose postmortem showed injuries consistent with torture.

A 40-year-old man told the panel he witnessed the rape of an 11-year-old boy by three security services officers.

The commission said Syria had violated the right to life, to peaceful assembly and to freedom of movement among others.

It called on the government to put an "immediate end to gross human rights violations" and launch an independent investigation into the violence.

The report also acknowledged the existence of the "Free Syrian Army," a group of defectors it said had claimed responsibility for armed attacks against military and security forces and in its list of recommendations the panel urged opposition groups to respect international human rights law.

The Human Rights Council set up the commission in August to investigate human rights violations in Syria where the UN estimates at least 3,500 people have been killed.

The panel met with regional organisations including the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Arab League as it gathered evidence from the end of September to the middle of November but was not allowed to carry out its work inside Syria.

The council will study the report by the three experts, Brazilian Pinheiro, Karen Koning AbuZayd from the United States and Turk Yakin Erturk at an extraordinary session to be arranged "very soon", a French diplomatic source said.

A statement by the US representative to the UN Human Rights Council, ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, said the report "amplifies an already growing chorus of international condemnation and call for action".

"It is clear to anyone who reads it that Assad's unwillingness to end his regime's violence is taking Syria down a very dangerous path despite efforts led by the Syrian people to start a peaceful transition to democracy," she said.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International Monday called for the UN Security Council to take action on the Syria case and refer it to the international war crimes court.

"The Human Rights Council should take the necessary steps to support implementation of the commission's recommendations, including calling on the UN Security Council to impose targeted sanctions and refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court," said HRW specialist Philippe Dam.

-Agencies-